I pushed back against the headboard to shift upright. “I’m here.”
She jumped up and flopped onto my bed, throwing her arms over me. “I don’t mean that. I’m sorry I’m being a beast, but you don’t know what it’s been like.”
“You’re right. I’ve been here fighting for my life. How was your summer?”
“Don’t be that way. It wasn’t my idea to go to London. Father sent me. I called every day. They told you, right?”
“For a week.”
“Trent told you that, did he? He always did like you best. But why call if no one was going to tell me anything? And I don’t know what Father is going on about. I never stepped out without Claire or George.”
“Who’s George?”
Caro beamed and my heart leapt for her. She was in love. She was so clearly in love. I had never seen it before, not in real life. In the films it’s all amorous prose, fake swoons, and eyelash batting. But Jane Austen got it right—it brings a “bloom” and Caro had it. Her cheeks glowed rosy and a sheen lit her eyes. She was transformed. She was radiant. I almost told her about Randolph right then and there, knowing she could understand. The emotion, the highs, the lows, the bubbles—we could share it together.
She continued faster than I could draw breath to begin.
“Remember how he used to hate it when we called him that?” She laughed.
My head filled with a heavy weight and I tried to remember a George we knew.
“Come now . . . George.” She poked me in the arm.
Her poke shot the answer straight to my head, then to my heart. “Randolph George? Are you talking about Randolph?”
“Who else?” She squealed and wrapped me tighter in her arms. “It started the week I stayed with them. I was so angry. I was picking on him, being terrifically nasty, but he didn’t stop me. He knew I was hurting. Then one night, after I’d gone to the London House with Claire, he came to pick me up for dinner and I forgot. I called him ‘Randolph’ and he spun on me as we walked through Hyde Park. He clasped my hand, Margo, and said, ‘I like being George to you.’ Then walking on, he didn’t drop my hand. I’ve called him George ever since.”
I could barely breathe. My heart beat so fast I was sure she could feel it. I’ve lost so much weight, I could see it. My linen nightgown quivered, and I pushed her away. She hardly noticed and shifted her weight to sit beside me, still lost in her story.
“He’s working at a legal firm this summer between terms, though I expect he’s back at Oxford now. He was leaving either at the end of last week or by the end of this week . . .” She sighed and draped herself across the foot of my bed, facing the ceiling. “He was wonderful, Margo. He came by, invited me out for walks, to tea, to dinners. He went on and on about you. Seriously, it was the first thing he asked every day—what I’d heard and how you were. You two always did have a ‘thing’ between you.”
She sang the word thing as if it was bright and playful and belonged to a child.
I clung to it anyway. “Every day?”
“Every day.” She smiled at me. “Then I think he realized how hard it was on me because I had no answers. No one here would tell me anything. They all swooped around you and forgot I might care. Mother started lying. Only when I could catch Betsy on the telephone did I believe I was getting even a partial truth.” She propped herself up and stared at me. “But you’re okay now, right? You are truly well?”
I assured her I was and we chatted until she was called to supper. I still take a tray in my room. She offered to stay with me, but I didn’t want her. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t speak, and I wanted to cry. Alone.
I hate her, Beatrice.
I want to hate her. I want to yell, scream, cry out, and call her “Tresse.” Then she would know. She would know how much she has hurt me. We made up the name years ago as a code for the worst kind of betrayal—for Mother when she betrayed us to Father simply because she refused to deal with us, for Trent when he told Father that one of the maids got pregnant, for Sallie when she stole Rebecca’s boyfriend last Christmas. Tra?tresse. Traitor. Tresse.
I did none of those things. I bit my tongue so long and so hard, I tasted blood. It’s not her fault. I’ve sat here for hours trying to make it her fault. But it’s mine. All mine.
I never told her, Beatrice. I am the one who broke the pact. We always said we would tell each other everything and I kept Randolph secret. Now it’s too late. I can’t let her know. I won’t be humiliated like that. What could I do? Ask her to give him to me? To not love him anymore?
She came back after supper. “Are you tired? I have a few more stories to share and it’s so nice to be with you again.”
She described every detail, every heartbeat, and every wonderful moment of the summer because that’s what we do. We tell each other everything.
Every loving sigh pierced like a dagger.
I couldn’t help myself, Beatrice. The moment she left, I climbed from bed and crossed my room to the mirror over my dresser and stared at this ghost I have become. We were once the same. Now I am night. She is day. I am death. She is life.
And Randolph kissed her.
She told me that before she left. She climbed to the head of the bed and curled into my pillows next to me. “Everything everything?” she questioned.
“Of course.” I closed my eyes.
“I love him, Margo.” She twisted to me and grabbed my hands. “I have missed you. You are the only one I can tell and I know you two are close, but you’re my sister so you can’t tell him. This is between us . . . Father would never let anything happen until I’m eighteen, and I don’t want George feeling complacent that I’ll just sit waiting for two years. After all, there are plenty of handsome boys in Europe.”
I pulled my hands away and pressed them into my eyes so hard stars burst beneath the lids.
“Are you okay?”
“They burn.” I looked to the window. “It was sunny outside today. At night, when I’m tired, they hurt.”
“I’m so selfish. I must let you rest.”
I sank into my covers and she skipped from the room. When excited, Caro has this half skip to her step. I always thought it was a very adorable trait and was glad to see she hadn’t outgrown it, as I feel she’s outgrown me.
Then another thought crept across me . . . I bet “George” finds it adorable too.
Sixteen
I sat holding the 1934 diary in my hands. It was after this point that the letters started. Caro left for Brilliantmont in Switzerland and nothing was ever the same between them.